[omd]

Ah, it's the "Don't upset corporations or they will punish us with infinite price hikes" mantra.

If they raise the price by €1 and for the sake of argument we assume a net profit of 50%, they would have to sell 1.1 billion packages to recoup the fine (I don't think Microsoft has sold that many software products in their lifetime, but it's a fun little thought experiment). 1.1 billion Windows 8 licences at €280 a piece is €308 billion revenue of which the corporation taxes will flow back to the EU members. It's a win-win for our tax payers!

[mda]

€1 was just figure of speech. (Still, Governments pay for a ton of Microsoft products; Ms office, Windows, Exchange mailboxes, Sharepoint licenses, SQL server licenses etc. etc. How much money do you think Ms makes from EU governments in one year? in 5 years?)

High software prices indeed harm tax payers. There is no win-win.

[r00fus]

> High software prices indeed harm tax payers. There is no win-win.

High software prices generally hurt businesses more than individual taxpayers. The 1EUR fine would be a catastrophe for Microsoft's PR, however.

That kind of move would also push a non-trivial population to alternatives (however weak) like Google Docs.

[grapjas]

>SQL server The rest I can understand but please tell me this isn't true